Quote:
Originally posted by Invictus
Herpocrite - perhaps you can shed some light on this. While I agree that in mammals a functional prefrontal cortex is necessary in order to have emotions, is this true of all animals? The reason I ask is because of a paper I read quite some time ago on neuroscience which suggested that many creatures with smaller brains actually have a completely different "mind map" than we do, and that the areas of the brain responsible for certain human functions are not in the same literal location on smaller creatures. Can you confirm/deny this? As I mentioned, it was quite a while ago, and this could possibly have been disproven.
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Actually, a functional prefrontal cortex in animals is not necessary for emotions. It has been implicated in a loss in emotional stability (which the media then dumbed down to "We have FOUND the seat of all emotions!") but humans or mammals with severe lesions or partial removal/ablation of this portion of the brain in still have emotions. As for the whether or not all animals the same brain map... well.. most animals have very similar brain maps. It's like living rooms. If you go into a living room in the U.S. most of them are very similar.... there are some notable exceptions, but on average - almost the same. If you then go into a living room or community room in another culture, it has some differences - some furniture may be missing, some may be added - but functionally very similar. It happens that way because they function similarly. The same can be said for the evolution of animal brains. They have evolved functionally similar in structure and mapping - even if there are some pieces added or missing - because they have the same basic functions. I'm not sure if I like that analogy because I came up with it off the top of my head, but you get the idea.
If you want to continue to pursue the line of thinking in which we take as a corollary that emotions are the benchmark of sentience and that the seat of emotions is found
somewhere in the brain (something that is not proven) then reptiles are almost certainly sentient.
New findings suggest that reptiles may have been the first animals to experience their emotions. Last year Michel Cabanac from Laval University in Canada showed that iguanas try to maximize sensory pleasure - they prefer to stay warm rather than venture out into the cold to get food. And when basking in a warm environment, they experience physiological changes associated with pleasure in humans and other vertebrates, such as "emotional fever" - a boost in body temperature - and a raised heart rate. Amphibians and fish do not exhibit these behavioral and physiological responses. Cabanac suggests that the first mental event to emerge into consciousness was the ability of an individual to experience the sensations of pleasure or displeasure. His research suggests that reptiles experience basic emotional states, and proposes that such emotions evolved somewhere between amphibians and early reptiles.
I don't mean to have stirred up all this just by mentioning that it is not a foregone conclusion that my snake cannot be "friendly". All I wanted was to figure out the sex, subspecies and humidity requirements of my new friend. I'm open to everyone having their opinion on this one... just don't tell me that mine is
wrong.
Herpocrite.
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